Re: The Pencil - That is not common knowledge and Dad's joke made sense because of that. Not many addicted to pedantry in northern Maine. :)

In 1974 I spent several weeks on Crete... well actually I was sitting on a Navy ship in a bay on 1/2 standby. It seems the Arabs and Israelis were shooting at each other again and we had to be ready to rescue the Americans who might get stuck in the cross fire. I never did get to go ashore.